Power Back On For Hundreds Of Residents At Center City Apartment Complex

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Power has been restored to an apartment complex along the Ben Franklin Parkway that had been without electricity since 1 a.m. Friday.

Residents at Park Towne Place Apartments woke up to no power or water Friday morning and were left in the dark as temperatures climbed into the 90s.

Two of four towers — the North and East buildings — were affected by the outage, said General Manager Bernard Brown.

“It’s hot, that’s why I’m out here. And also there are elderly people – like there’s a lady in the lobby right now, she’s on oxygen, she turned on emergency, it’s only two hours of emergency, I’ve been trying to reach her family,” one resident said.

Park Towne sent an e-mail blast to all residents, and a memo was posted in the hallways saying the buildings had “experienced a main electrical outage,” and that “contractors’ were onsite diligently working to correct the problem.”

The memo called it a “major repair.”

Refreshments and a cooling center were set up in the South building where folks can go and get relief as the day gets hotter.

Brown said they knocked on doors to notify the senior residents.

“Because of the electrical outage, some of the phones aren’t working, so they didn’t get our e-mail,” said Brown.

Joletta Olevich lives on the 19th floor of the North Building. She did receive an e-mail from Park Towne alerting her of the outage. Olevich says she’s concerned about the heat on the top floor, if it isn’t fixed by the afternoon.